Monday, June 24, 2024

Educational-Intellectual De-Westernization for Africa: Rejection of the Colonial, Elitist, Racist and Profane European Concepts of 'University' and 'Academy'

 

Образовательно-интеллектуальная девестернизация в Африке: отказ от колониальных, элитарных, расистских и богохульных европейских концепций «Университет» и «Академия»

 

 

In a previous article published under the title "Beyond Afrocentrism: Prerequisites for Somalia to lead African de-colonization and de-Westernization", I expanded on the diverse misconceptions, oversights, errors and problems that existed in the early discourses of the African Afrocentric intellectuals who wanted to liberate Africa from the colonial yoke but did not assess correctly all the levels of colonial penetration and impact, namely spiritual, religious, intellectual, educational, academic, scientific, cultural, socio-behavioral, economic, military and governmental. You can find the article's contents and links to it at the end of the present, second part of the series.  



What matters mostly is not the study and the publication of Assyrian cuneiform texts, but the reestablishment of the Ancient Mesopotamian conceptual approach to Medicine as a spiritual-material scientific discipline; "a large collection of texts from the Assyrian healer Kisir-Ashur's family library forms the basis for Assyriologist Troels Pank Arbøll's new book. In the book entitled Medicine in Ancient Assur - A Microhistorical Study of the Neo-Assyrian Healer Kiṣir-Aššur, Arbøll analyses the 73 texts that the healer, and later his apprentices, scratched into clay tablets around 658 BCE. These manuscripts provide an incredibly detailed picture of the elements, which constituted this specific Mesopotamian healer’s education and practice". https://humanities.ku.dk/news/2020/new-book-provides-rare-insights-into-a-mesopotamian-medical-practitioners-education-2700-years-ago/


Contents

Introduction

I. Centers of education, science and wisdom from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Constantinople and Baghdad: total absence of the Western concept of "university"

II. The Western European concept of "university": inextricably linked to the Crusades, colonialism and totalitarianism  

III. De-colonization for Africa: rejection of the colonial, elitist and racist concepts of "university" and "academy"

 

Содержание

Введение

I. Центры образования, науки и мудрости от Месопотамии и Египта до Константинополя и Багдада: полное отсутствие западной концепции «университет»

II. Западноевропейская концепция «университет»: неразрывно связана с крестовыми походами, колониализмом и тоталитаризмом

III. Деколонизация Африки: отказ от колониальных, элитарных и расистских концепций «университет» и "академия"

 

Introduction

As I stated in my previous article, the most erroneous aspects of the African Afrocentric intellectuals' approach were the following:

a) their underestimation of the extremely profound impact that the colonization has had on all dimensions of life in Africa,

b) their failure to identify the compact nature of the colonial system as first implemented in Western Europe, then exported worldwide via multifaceted types of colonization, and finally imposed locally by the criminal traitors and stooges of their Western masters in a most tyrannical manner, and

c) their disregard of the fact that the multilayered colonization project was carried out indeed by the colonial countries in other continents (Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, etc.) as well, being thus not only an African affair.

 

To the above, I herewith add another, most crucial, element of the worldwide colonial regime that the African Afrocentric intellectuals failed to identify:

- its indivisibility.  

 


Ancient Egyptians at school: a model letter writing exercise. The teacher corrected spelling mistakes in red; ca. 1850 BCE, currently in Metropolitan Museum


In fact, you cannot possibly think that it is possible to reject even one part of the evil system (example: its Eurocentric pseudo-historical dogma, the promotion of incest and pedophilia, the sophisticated diffusion of homosexuality or another part) while accepting others, namely 'high technology', 'sustainable development', 'politics', 'democracy', 'economic stability', 'human rights', etc. Of course, this relates to the element described in the aforementioned aspect b, but it is certainly very important for all Africans not to make general dreams and not to harbor delusions as regards the Western colonial system that they have to reject as the most execrable and the most criminal occurrence that brought disaster to the Black Continent (and to the rest of the world) for several centuries.

 

In the present article, I will however stay close to the fundamental educational-academic-intellectual aspects of colonization that African academics, intellectuals, mystics, wise elders, erudite scholars, and spiritual masters have to take into account when considering how to reject and ban from their educational and research centers the colonially imposed pseudo-education and the associated historical forgeries, such as Eurocentrism, Hellenism, Greco-Roman world, Judeo-Christian civilization, etc. In part IV of my previous article, I explained why "Afrocentrism had to encompass severe criticism and total rejection of the so-called Western Civilization". Now, I will take this issue to the next stage.

 


 Ancient Egyptian scribes


I. Centers of education, science and wisdom from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Constantinople and Baghdad: total absence of the Western concept of "university"

You cannot possibly decolonize your land and de-Westernize your national education by tolerating the existence of 'universities' on African soil or anywhere else across the Earth. Certainly, this word is alien to all Africans, because it is part of the vocabulary or the barbarian invaders (université, university, etc.), who imposed it without revealing to the African students the racist connotation, which is inherent to this word.

 

Actually, the central measure taken and the principal practice performed by the inhuman Western colonial masters was the materialization of the evil concept of 'university' and the establishment of such unnecessary and heinous institutions in their colonies. This totalitarian notion was devised first in Western Europe in striking contrast to all the educational, academic, scientific systems that had existed in the rest of the world.

 

Since times immemorial, and noticeably in Mesopotamia and Egypt before the Flood (24th – 23rd c. BCE), institutions were created to record, archive, study, comprehend, represent, preserve and propagate the spiritual or material knowledge and wisdom in all of their aspects. From the Sumerian, Akkadian and Assyrian-Babylonian Eduba (lit. 'the house where the tablets are completed') and from the Ancient Egyptian Per-Ankh (lit. 'the house of life') to the highest sacerdotal institutions accommodated in the uniquely vast temples of Assyria, Babylonia and Egypt, an undividable method of learning, exploring, assessing, and representing the spiritual and material worlds (or universes) has been attested in numerous texts and documented in the archaeological record.


From the scribal school at Nippur, Central Mesopotamia: a catalogue of Assyrian-Babylonian proverbs


Simple sign exercise of an apprentice: the first wedges

 

About Education, Wisdom, and Scientific Research in Ancient Mesopotamia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduba

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110741124-003/html

https://africame.factsanddetails.com/article/entry-92.html

https://www.academia.edu/3323238/Domesticizing_Babylonian_Scribal_Culture_in_Assyria_Transformation_by_Preservation

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-science/science-and-ancient-mesopotamia/C48D6E70188ED938863F479B692D465B#

https://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/archived-projects/geography-knowledge-assyria-and-babylonia

https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/projectlist.html

Niek Veldhuis, On the Curriculum of the Neo-Babylonian School

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3217754

Assyrian Imperial Administration 680-627 BCE: A Comparison between Babylonia and the West under Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal

https://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2397&context=theses_hons

https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/ancient-healthcare-fit-king#:~:text=In%20Mesopotamia%2C%20medicine%20mostly%20involved,of%20healing%20potions%20or%20enemas.

Mesopotamian medicine

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17378276/

Medicine in Mesopotamia

https://uomustansiriyah.edu.iq/media/lectures/2/2_2018_11_16!07_25_05_PM.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6429561_Mesopotamian_medicine

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-science/mesopotamian-mathematics/9A71B9240A02458691FCB1E0221FCA60

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_mathematics

Zaid Haba, Mathematics in Ancient Mesopotamia - April 2021

https://iraqieconomists.net/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/04/Mathematics-in-Mesopotamia.pdf

https://www.asor.org/anetoday/2023/02/cuneiform-mathematics


Mesopotamian scribal schoolboy practicing syllables; from Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks: Highlights of the Yale Babylonian Collection, edited by Agnete W. Lassen, Eckart Frahm, and Klaus Wagensonner, distributed by Yale University Press for the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in April 2019


About Education, Wisdom, and Scientific Research in Ancient Egypt:

https://www.virtualkemet.com/perankh/index.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr_(hieroglyph)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-house-of-life%3B%3A-Per-ankh.-Magic-and-medical-in-Ghalioungui/85c6be3d595579c8e1c4be734bc4bdd632dc8ac5

https://www.ancient-egypt-online.com/education-ancient-egypt.html

https://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub404/item1929.html

https://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/id/eprint/566/1/Education%2C%20Pharaonic%20Egypt.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_medicine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_mathematics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_technology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egypt#Daily_life

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1026/clergy-priests--priestesses-in-ancient-egypt/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336842816_Education_in_Ancient_Egypt_till_the_End_of_the_Graeco-Roman_Period_Some_Evidences_for_Quality/link/5e7dc8c9a6fdcc139c08ff27/download?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIiwicGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIn19

https://www.scribd.com/document/587878437/5-Early-Egyptian-Education-Written-Report?irclickid=1yJRTExG8xyKUiyQKow1xTgjUkHSpaSCl1K8200&irpid=123201&sharedid=232498&irgwc=1

https://historielaerer.dk/education-in-ancient-egypt/

https://malaikamutere.com/2021/02/14/perankh-house-of-life-love-light/


 Ancient Egyptians at school


There was no utilitarian approach to learning, studying, exploring, comprehending, representing and propagating knowledge and wisdom; in this regard, the human effort had to fit the destination of Mankind, which was -for all civilized nations- the epitome of all eschatological expectations: the ultimate reconstitution of the original perfection of the First Man.

 

Learning, studying, exploring, assessing or concluding on a topic, and representing it to others were parts of every man's moral tasks and duties to maintain the Good in their lives and to unveil the Wonders of the Creation. The only benefit to be extracted from these activities was of moral and spiritual order – not material. That is why the endless effort to learn, study, explore, assess, conclude and represent had to be all-encompassing.

 


From the mortuary temple of Seti I at Abedju /Abydos - Self-begotten and Scribe for all other aspects of the Divine, Djhawty (Ḏḥwtj, known as Thoth to the Ancient Greeks) represented the aspect of divine Wisdom for the Ancient Egyptians; credited with the invention of writing (: the hieroglyphics), Thoth was often depicted as holding the Ankh symbol, being therefore the Life-giver and the Master of the sectors of Knowledge, material or transcendental. He thus epitomized the indissoluble link between education, religion and spirituality. About: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ḏḥwtj and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth


Neo-Sumerian map of field 21st c. BCE


The same approach, attitude and mentality was attested among Cushites, Hittites, Aramaeans, Iranians, Turanians,  Indians, Chinese and many other Asiatic and African nations. It continued so all the way down to Judean, Manichaean, Mazdaean, Christian, and Islamic times as attested in

 

a) the Iranian schools, centers of learning, research centers, and libraries of Gundishapur (located in today's Khuzestan, SW Iran), Tesifun (Ctesiphon, also known as Mahoze in Syriac Aramaic and as Al-Mada'in in Arabic; located in Central Mesopotamia), and Ras al Ayn (the ancient Assyrian city Resh-ina, which is also known as Resh Aina in Syriac Aramaic; located in North Mesopotamia);

 

b) the Aramaean scientific centers and schools of Urhoy (today's Urfa in SE Turkey; which is also known as Edessa of Osrhoene), Nasibina (today's Nusaybin in SE Turkey; which is also known as Nisibis), Mahoze (also known as Seleucia-Ctesiphon), and Antioch;

 

c) the Ptolemaic Egyptian Library of Alexandria, the Coptic school of Alexandria, and the Deir Aba Maqar (Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great) in Wadi el Natrun (west of the Nile Delta);

 

d) the Imperial school of the Magnaura (lit. 'the Great Hall') at Constantinople (known in Eastern Roman as Πανδιδακτήριον τς Μαγναύρας, i.e. 'the all topics teaching center of Magnaura');

 

e) the Aramaean 'Workshop of Eloquence', which is also known as the 'Rhetorical school  of Gaza' (earlier representing the Gentile tradition and later promoting Christian Monophysitism);

 

f) the Judean Rabbinic and Talmudic schools and Houses of Learning (בי מדרשא/Be Midrash) that flourished in Syria-Palestine (Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai) and in Mesopotamia (Nehardea, Pumbedita, Mahoze, etc.); and

 

g) the Islamic schools (madrasas), centers of learning, research centers, observatories, and libraries of Baghdad (known as House of Wisdom - Bayt al Hikmah/بيت الحكمة), Harran (in North Mesopotamia, today's SE Turkey), al-Qarawiyyin (جامعة القرويين; in Morocco), Kairouan (جامع القيروان الأكبر; in Tunisia), Sarouyeh (سارویه; near Isfahan in Iran), Maragheh (مراغه; in NW Iran), Samarqand (in Central Asia), and the numerous Nezamiyeh (النظامیة) schools in Iran, Caucasus region, and Central Asia, to name but a few.

 

About Iranian, Aramaean, Judean, and Christian schools, centers of learning, research centers, and libraries:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundeshapur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Gondishapur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctesiphon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mada%27in

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ras_al-Ayn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urfa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osroene

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Edessa

http://www.nestorian.org/the_school_of_edessa.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusaybin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Nisibis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Seleucia-Ctesiphon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Antioch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Alexandria

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastery_of_Saint_Macarius_the_Great

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Constantinople

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnaura

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_school_of_Gaza

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmudic_academies_in_Syria_Palaestina

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houses_of_Hillel_and_Shammai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehardea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmudic_academies_in_Babylonia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumbedita

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumbedita_Academy

 

About Islamic schools (madrasas), centers of learning, research centers, observatories, and libraries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_al-Qarawiyyin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harran_University_(Middle_Ages)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mosque_of_Kairouan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarouyeh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrasa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nezamiyeh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maragheh_observatory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg_Observatory

 

Also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_higher-learning_institutions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_university

 

All these centers of learning did not develop the absurd distinction between the spiritual and material worlds that characterizes the modern 'universities' which were incepted in Western Europe. Irrespective of land, origin, language, tradition, culture and state, all these temples, schools, madrasas, observatories, and libraries included well-diversified scientific methods, cosmogonies, world perceptions, approaches to life, interpretations of facts, and considerations of data. Sexagesimal and decimal number systems were accepted and used; lunar, solar and lunisolar calendars were studied and evaluated; astronomy and astrology (very different from their modern definition and meaning which is the result of the Western pseudo-scientific trickery) were inseparable, whereas chemistry and alchemy constituted one discipline. These true and human centers of knowledge and wisdom were void of sectarianism and utilitarianism.

 

Viewed as moral tasks, search, exploration and study, pretty much like learning and teaching constituted inextricably religious endeavors. Furthermore, there was absolute freedom of reflection, topic conceptualization, data contextualization, text interpretation, and conclusion, because there were no diktats of theological or governmental order.

 

In brief, throughout World History, there were centers of learning, houses of knowledge, libraries, centers of scientific exploration, all-inclusive schools, but no 'universities'.

 

--- ANCIENT CENTERS OF LEARNING AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ---



Representation of gold tablet excavated at Persepolis with cuneiform inscription of Darius the Great (ca. 520-500 BCE); at the highest point on the Persepolis terrace a huge 'Audience Palace', the Apadana, was built to receive outstanding visitors. Its massive roof was supported by 72 stone columns; of them only fourteen still stand. Over each of the four corners rose a 4-story tall tower and in the foundation of each Darius had a stone box placed; each contained a 'foundation inscription' inscribed on gold and silver plates. Each plate was tri-lingual (in Babylonian, Elamite and Old Persian). Two of the stone boxes remained hidden and untouched for about 2500 years. After their discovery, one set of plates was stored at the palace of Reza, Shah of Iran and the other set went on display in a museum. After the revolution in 1978 removed the Shah, son of Reza Shah, and after the modern Islamic Republic was established, the second set was also displayed in a museum. For many years both sets of plates and their stone boxes were displayed in Iran’s National Museum in Tehran. However, they were still not immune from theft; several years ago, after one of the gold plates was stolen and melted down by an official, the rest was removed to the government’s National Treasury. About: https://latterdaysaintmag.com/the-gold-plates-of-king-darius/ and https://archive.org/details/persepolis_discovery_and_afterlife_of_a_world_wonder



Taq-e Kasra (طاق كسرى) or Ewane Khusrow (ایوان خسرو), known also as Arch of Ctesiphon (Tesifun; تیسفون) is today the greatest remaining structure from one of the two main capitals of Sassanid Empire (224-651 CE); in terms of knowledge, learning, science and research, it eclipsed Rome by far; The arched iwan hall (ca. 37 m high, 26 m across, and 50 m long) is the largest man-made, free standing vault constructed until modern times.



A small part of the site of the Sassanid Gundishapur imperial center of higher education, scientific research, library and archives has been excavated thus far;  14 km SE of Dezful



2nd c. CE Aramaean mosaic with representation related to the cult of Atargatis (also known as 'the Syrian goddess') and inscription from Urhoy/Edessa of Osrhoene/Urfa (Haleplibahçe Mozaik Museum)


King Abgar of Urhoy (Edessa of Osrhoene/Urfa) and the Image of Edessa (from St Catherine monastery in Sinai; 10th century)


Urfa/Urhoy/Edessa of Osrhoene: Balıklıgöl (Fish Lake; also known as Halil-Ür Rahman Lake) is a pool and a nearby mosque and madrasa, which -according to Islamic traditions- are thought to be the location where Nimrud threw Abraham into a fire, but he survived.



The archaeological site of the School of Nisibis in today's Nusaybin, SE Turkey


Mar Yaqub (St. Jacob) Church in Nusaybin; known as 'Moses of Mesopotamia', St. Jacob of Nasibina (Nisibis) lived in the 4th c. CE.


 Monastery of St Macarius, Wadi El-Natroun


Wall painting of the martyrdom of saints, 6th c.; from a building at the Coptic town of Wadi Sarga, Egypt


Stucco wall painting of St. Cosmas and St. Damian; between them are the figures of Anthemos, Leontios and Euprepios; above a monochrome panel with Three Children in the Furnace and a Coptic inscription; 6th–7th c. from Wadi Sarga, Egypt


Reconstruction of the Magnaura palace or Senate at Constantinople (left); to the right is depicted the Chalke gate.


Büyük Saray Merdiven Kulesi: Grand Palace Staircase Tower; the remaining part of the Magnaura Palace

Cambridge University Library manuscript T-S F9.41 recto (above) and verso (below): a commentary to Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Meṣiʿa



Representation of Rabbi Ashi teaching at the Sura Academy


Above: drawing of self-trimming lamp in Ahmad ibn Musa ibn Shakir's treatise on mechanical devices; below: a page from al-Khwarizmi's Kitab al-Jabr



Qarawiyyin mosque, Morocco


The Great Mosque of Kairouan (also known as the Great Mosque of Sidi-Uqba), Tunisia


Rock carved with al-Aqida al-Murshida (العقيدة المرشدة; the Guiding Creed) by Ibn Tumart (approved by Sheikh Fakhr al-Din Ibn Asakir, 12th-13th c.); it is located in the garden dedicated to Sheikh Ibn Asakir in Al-Salah Islamic High School in Baalbek, Lebanon. Ibn Tumart (1080-1130), founder of the Berber Almohad dynasty (1121–1269) in NW Africa and Spain, had attended the Nizamiyya school of Baghdad and studied under Al-Kiya al-Harrasi (1058-1110). Al Ghazali (1058-1111) was also appointed (in 1091) as professor in the same school by the founder Nizam al-Mulk (نظام‌الملک; 1018-1092; his real names being Abu Ali Hasan ibn Ali Tusi), the Iranian adviser and vizier of Alp Arslan (second sultan of the Seljuk Empire; 1029-1072; reign after 1063) and his successor, Malik Shah I (1055-1092).


 Mustansiriya Madrasah


Miniature from manuscript of the Tevārīh-i Güzide Nusret Nāme (British Library Or. 3222, f.105), depicting the great Iranian scholar and astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274; نصیر الدین طوسی) and colleagues working on the Zij-i Ilkhani (زیجِ ایلخانی) astronomical catalogue at the observatory of Maragheh (NW Iran) where he transferred a considerable part of valuable manuscripts from Baghdad after he accompanied the Great Mongol Emperor Hulagu (grandson of Genghis Khan; 1217-1265) in his expedition against and destruction of the capital of the Islamic Caliphate (1258).



Ulugh Beg Observatory, Samarqand; Ulugh Beg (1394-1449; reign from 1447), scholar, astronomer, emperor of the Timurid state, and grandson Tamerlane (Timur), one of the World History's most erudite rulers



Ulugh Beg and his harem; manuscript of the Freer Gallery of Art


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II. The Western European concept of "university": inextricably linked to the Crusades, colonialism and totalitarianism   

Western European and North American historians attempt to expand the use of the term 'university' and cover earlier periods; this fact may have already been attested in some of the links that I included in the previous unit. However, this attempt is entirely false and absolutely propagandistic.

 

The malefic character of the Western European universities is not revealed only in the deliberate, absurd and fallacious separation of the spiritual sciences from the material sciences and in the subsequently enforced elimination of the spiritual universe from every attempt of exploration undertaken within the material universe. Yet, the inseparability of the two universes was the predominant concept and the guiding principle for all ancient, Judean, Christian, Manichaean, Mazdaean, and Islamic schools of learning.

 

One has to admit that there appears to be an exception in this rule, which applies to Western universities as regards the distinction between the spiritual and the material research; this situation is attested only in the study of Christian theology in Western European universities. However, this sector is also deprived of every dimension of spiritual exercise, practice and research, as it involves a purely rationalist and nominalist approach, which would be denounced as entirely absurd, devious and heretic by all the Fathers of the Christian Church. As a matter of fact, rationalism, nominalism and materialism are forms of faithlessness.

 

All the same, the most repugnant trait of the Western European universities is their totalitarian and inhuman nature. In spite of tons of literature written about the so-called 'academic freedom', the word itself, its composition and etymology, fully demonstrate that there is not and there cannot be any freedom in the Western centers of pseudo-learning, which are called 'universities'. The Latin word 'universitas' did not exist at the times of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, and the Western Roman Empire. The nonsensical term was not created in the Eastern Roman Empire where the imperial center of education, learning, and scientific research was wisely named 'Pandidakterion', i.e. 'the all topics teaching center'.

 

The first 'universitas' was incepted long after the anti-Constantinopolitan heretics of Rome managed to get rid of the obligation to accept as pope of Rome the person designated by the Emperor at Constantinople, which was a practice of vital importance which lasted from 537 until 752 CE.

 

The first 'universitas' was incepted long after the beginning of the systematic opposition that the devious, pseudo-Christian priesthood of Rome launched against the Eastern Roman Empire, by fallaciously attributing the title of Roman Emperor to the incestuous barbarian thug Charlemagne (800 CE). 

 

Last, the first 'universitas' was incepted long after the first (Photian) schism (867 CE) and, quite interestingly, several decades after the Great Schism (1054 CE) between the Eastern Roman Empire and the deviate and evil Roman papacy.

 

In fact, the University of Bologna ('Universitas Bononiensis'; in Central Italy) was established in 1088 CE, only eight (8) years before the First Crusade was launched in 1096 CE.

 

It is necessary for all Africans to come to know the historic motto of the terrorist organization that is masqueraded behind the deceitful title "University of Bologna': "Petrus ubique pater legum Bononia mater" (: St. Peter is everywhere the father of the law, Bologna is its mother). This makes clear that these evil institutions (universities) were geared to function worldwide as centers of propagation and imposition of the lawless laws and the inhuman dogmas of the Western European barbarians. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Papacy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne#Reign_as_emperor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photian_schism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E2%80%93West_Schism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Bologna

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade


Lead seal of Michael Cerularius (Μιχαήλ Κηρουλάριος; 1000-1059), Patriarch of Constantinople (from 1043), who excommunicated pope Leo IX of Rome, thus triggering the Great Schism. The evil institution of 'universitas' could have never been launched without a final separation of the barbarian and faithless Western European realms from the Christian Orthodox Eastern Roman Empire.


At this point, we have to analyze the real meaning and the repugnant nature of the monstrous word. Its Latin etymology points to the noun 'universus', which is formed from 'uni-' (root of the Genitive 'unius' of the numeral 'unus', which means 'one') and from 'versus' (past participle of the Latin verb 'verto', which in the infinitive form 'vertere' means 'to turn'). Consequently, 'universus' means forcibly 'turned into one'. It goes without saying that, if the intention is to mentally-intellectually turn all the students into one, there is not and there cannot be any freedom in those malefic institutions. About:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unus#Etymology

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/versus#Latin

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/universitas#Latin

 

'Universitas' is therefore the inauspicious location whereby 'all are turned into one', inevitably losing their identity, integrity, originality, singularity and individuality. In other words, 'universitas' was conceived as the proper word for a monstrous factory of mental, intellectual, sentimental and educational uniformity that produces copies of dehumanized beings that happen to have the same, prefabricated world views, ideas, opinions, beliefs and systematized 'knowledge'. In fact, the first 'students' of the University of Bologna were the primary industrial products in the history of mankind. Speaking about 'academic freedom' and charters like the Constitutio Habita were then merely the ramifications of an unmatched hypocrisy. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University#Academic_freedom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authentica_habita

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_university#Establishment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medieval_universities

 

To establish a useful parallel between medieval times in Western Europe and modern times in North America, while also bridging the malefic education with the malignant governance of the Western states, I would simply point out that the evil, perverse and tyrannical institution of 'universities' definitely suits best any state and any government that would dare invent an inhumane motto like 'E pluribus unum' ('out of many, one). This is actually one of the two main mottos of the United States, and it appears on the US Great Seal. It reflects always the same sickness and the same madness of diabolical uniformity that straightforwardly contradicts every concept of Creation. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pluribus_unum#Origins

 

E pluribus unum


One may still wonder why, at the very beginning of the previous unit, I referred to "the racist connotation, which is inherent to" the word 'universitas'; the answer is simple. By explicitly desiring to "turn all (the students) into one", the creators of these calamitous institutions and, subsequently, all the brainless idiots, who willingly accepted to eliminate themselves spiritually and intellectually in order to become uniformed members of those 'universities', denied and rejected the existence of the 'Other', i.e. of every other culture, civilization, world conceptualization, moral system of values, governance, education, and approach to learning, knowledge and wisdom.

 

The evil Western structures of tyrannical pseudo-learning did not accept even the 11th c. Western European Christians and their culture an faith; they accepted only those among them, who were ready (for the material benefits that they would get instead) to undergo the necessary process of irrevocable self-effacement in order to obtain a filthy piece of paper testifying to their uniformity with the rest. Western universities are the epitome of the most inhuman form of racism that has ever existed on Earth.

 

As a matter of fact, there is nothing African, Asiatic, Christian, Islamic or human in a 'university'. If this statement was difficult to comprehend a few centuries or decades ago, it is nowadays fully understandable.

 

III. De-colonization for Africa: rejection of the colonial, elitist and racist concepts of "university" and "academy" 

It is therefore crystal clear that every new university, named after the Latin example and conceived after the Western concept, only worsens the conditions of colonial servility among African, Asiatic and Latin American nations. As a matter of fact, more Western-styled 'universities' and 'academies' mean for Africa more compact subordination to, and more comprehensive dependence on, the Western colonial criminals.

 

It is only the result of pure naivety or compact ignorance to imagine that the severe educational-academic-intellectual damage, which was caused to all African nations by the colonial powers, will or can be remedied with some changes of names, titles, mottos and headlines or due to peremptory modifications of scientific conclusions. If I expanded on the etymology and the hidden, real meaning of the term 'universitas', it is only because I wanted to reveal its perverse nature. But merely a name change would not suffice in an African nation's effort to achieve genuine decolonization and comprehensive de-Westernization.

 

Universities in all the Arabic-speaking countries have been called 'Jamaet' (or Gamaet; جامعة); the noun originates from the verb 'yajmaC ' (يجمع), which means collecting or gathering (people) together. At this point, it is to be reminded that the word has great affinity with the word 'mosque' (جامع; JamaC) in Arabic. However, one has to take into consideration the fact that the mere change of name did not cause any substantive differentiation in terms of nature, structure, approach to science, methods used, and moral character of the overall educational system. About:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/جامعة

 

Other vicious Western terms of educational nature that should be removed from Africa, Asia and Latin America are the word 'academy' and its derivatives; this word denoted initially in Western Europe 'a society of distinguished scholars and artists or scientists'. Later, in the 16th-17th c., those societies were entirely institutionalized. For this reason, since the beginning of the 20th c., the term 'academia' was coined to describe the overall academic environment or a specific independent community active in the different fields of research and education. More recently, 'academy' ended up signifying any simple place of study or training company.

 

As name, nature, contents, structure and function, 'academy' is definitely profane; in its origin, it had a markedly impious character, as it was used to designate the so-called 'school of philosophy' that was set up by Plato, who vulgarized knowledge and desecrated wisdom. In fact, this philosopher did not only fail to pertinently and comprehensively study in Ancient Egypt where he sojourned (in Iwnw; Heliopolis), but he also proved to be unable to grasp that there is no knowledge and no wisdom outside the temples, which were at the time the de facto high centers of spiritual and material study, learning, research, exploration and comprehension. He therefore thought it possible for him to 'teach' (or discuss with) others despite the fact that he had not proficiently studied and adequately learned the wisdom and the spiritual potency of the Ancient Egyptian Iwnw (Heliopolitan) hierophants and high priests.

 

Being absolutely incompetent to become a priest of the sanctuary of Athena at the suburb 'Academia' of Athens, he gathered his group of students at a location nearby, and for this reason his 'school' was named after that neighborhood. It is noteworthy that the said suburb's name was due to a legendary figure, Akademos (Ακάδημος; Academus), who was mythologized in relation with the Theseus legends of Ancient Athens. Using the term 'school' for Plato's group of friends and followers is really abusive, because it did not constitute an accredited priestly or public establishment.

 


The vain glorification of the Platonic Academy is a modern Western European bias; the discovery (in 1897) of a (1st c. BCE – 79 CE) mosaic in the villa of T. Siminius Stephanus in Pompeii unleashed a madness that took hold in the Western European academic and intellectual circles. There is no apparent reason for which the mosaic should be depicting Plato's school; most probably, it represents some decayed, elitist Roman statesmen who wanted to be dressed after the Greek fashion while attending a banquet. Yet, it became known as Plato's Academy mosaic, which is totally false and absolutely ridiculous. Still, what matters most in this case is the fact that, back at those days, the Roman Empire was flooded by Oriental cults, religions, mysticisms, faiths, myths and traditions of African and Asiatic origin. The extraordinary and unprecedented diffusion of Oriental cults throughout the Roman Empire and other parts of Europe put the final tombstone on the bad habits of the old Roman elite that found in the Ancient Greek philosophers the perfect opportunity and the best means to disregard their spiritual needs and to delude themselves with meaningless and worthless talking. They were therefore irreversibly swept away by Christianity, a new religion, which did not tolerate either the mischievous daily life of the corrupt Greek and Roman elites or the villainous institutions of republic, slavery, democracy, theater, and philosophy.



In fact, all those, absurdly eulogized, 'Platonic seminars' were informal gatherings of presumptuous, arrogant, wealthy, parasitic and idiotic persons, who thought it possible to become spiritually knowledgeable and portentous by pompously, yet nonsensically, discussing about what they could not possibly know. It goes without saying that this disgusting congregation of immoral beasts found it quite normal to possess numerous slaves (more than their family members), consciously practiced pedophilia and homosexuality, and viewed their wives as 'things' in a deprecatory manner unmatched even by the Afghan Taliban. This nauseating and execrable environment is at the origin of vicious term 'academy'. And this environment is the target of today's Western elites. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy#History

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academus

 

Consequently, any use of the term 'academy' constitutes a straightforward rejection of the sacerdotal, religious and spiritual dimension of knowledge and wisdom, in direct opposition to what was worldwide accepted among civilized nations with great temples throughout the history of mankind. In fact, the appearance of what is now called 'Ancient Greek Philosophy' was an exception in World History, which was due to the peripheral and marginal location of Western Anatolia and South Balkans with respect to Egypt, Cush, Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Iran. In brief, the Ancient Greek philosophers (with the exception of very few who were true mystics and spiritual masters and therefore should not be categorized as 'philosophers') failed to understand that, by exploring the world only mentally and verbally (i.e. by just thinking and talking), no one can sense, describe, and represent (to others) the true nature of the worlds, namely the spiritual and the material universes.

 

Plato and his pupils (his 'school' or 'academy') were therefore ordinary individuals who attempted to 'prove' orally what cannot be contained in words and cannot be comprehended logically but contemplatively and transcendentally. All the Platonic concepts, notions, ideas, opinions and theories are maladroit and failed efforts to explain the Iwnw (Heliopolitan) religion of Ancient Egypt (also known among the Ancient Greeks as the 'Ennead'). But none of them was able to perform even a minor move of priestly potency or any transcendental act.

 

Furthermore, I have to point out that the absurd 'significance' that both, the so-called Plato's school and 'Ancient Greek Philosophy', have acquired in the West over the past few centuries is entirely due to the historical phenomenon of Renaissance that characterized 15th-16th c. Western Europe. But this is an exception even within the context of European History. Actually, the Roman ruler Sulla destroyed the Platonic Academy in 86 BCE; this was the end of the 'Academy'. Several centuries later, some intellectuals, who were indulging themselves in repetition, while calling themselves 'successors of Plato', opened (in Athens) another 'Academy', which was erroneously described by modern Western university professors as 'Neo-Platonic'. All the same, the Roman Emperor Justinian I the Great put an irrevocable end to that shame of profanity and nonsensical talking (529 CE). About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulla#Sack_of_Athens

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Athens_and_Piraeus_(87%E2%80%9386_BC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I#Authoritarian_rule

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy#Neoplatonic_Academy

 

The revival of the worthless institution that had remained unknown to all Christians started, quite noticeably, little time after the fall of Constantinople (1453); in 1462, the anti-Christian banker, statesman and intellectual Cosimo dei Medici established the Platonic Academy of Florence to propagate all the devilish and racist concepts of the Renaissance and praise the worthless institution that had been forgotten. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy_(Florence)

 


The corrupt banker Cosimo dei Medici (1389-1464); posthumous portrait by the mannerist painter Bronzino (whose real name was Agnolo di Cosimo; 1503-1572)


I recently explained why the Western European Renaissance and the colonial conquests are an indissoluble phenomenon of extremely racist nature; here you can find the links to my articles:

https://www.academia.edu/114770216/Aristotle_as_Historical_Forgery_the_Western_Worlds_Fake_History_and_Rotten_Foundations_and_Prof_Jin_Canrongs_Astute_Comments

https://www.academia.edu/115003715/The_Fake_Texts_of_Ancient_Greek_Historians_the_Behistun_Inscription_Ctesias_Diodorus_Siculus_Darius_I_the_Great_and_Semiramis

https://www.academia.edu/120038294/The_Collective_West_its_Mysteries_Illusions_and_Threats_against_the_Mankind

 

It becomes therefore crystal clear that Africa does not need any more Western-styled universities and academies; contrarily, there is an urgent need for university-level centers of knowledge and wisdom, which will overwhelmingly apply African moral concepts, values and virtues to the topics studied and explored. Learning was always an inextricably spiritual, religious, and cultural affair in Africa. No de-colonization will be effectuated prior to the reinstallation of African educational values across Africa' s schools.

 

Consequently, instead of uselessly spending money for the establishment of new 'universities' and 'academies', which only deepen and worsen Africa's colonization, what the Black Continent needs now is a new type of institution that will help prepare African students to study abroad in specifically selected sectors and with pre-arranged determination and approach, comprehend and reject the Western fallacy, and replace the Western-styled universities with new, genuinely African, educational institutions. Concerning this topic, I will offer few suggestions in my forthcoming article.   

 

======================= 

 

Beyond Afrocentrism: Prerequisites for Somalia to lead African de-colonization and de-Westernization

Introduction

I. Decolonization and the failure of the Afrocentric Intelligentsia

II. Afrocentric African scholars should have been taken Egyptology back from the Western Orientalists and Africanists 

III. Western Usurpation of African Heritage must be canceled.

IV. Afrocentrism had to encompass severe criticism and total rejection of the so-called Western Civilization

V. Afrocentrism as a form of African Isolationism drawing a line of separation between colonized nations in Africa and Asia

VI. General estimation of the human resources, the time, and the cost needed

VII. Decolonization means above all De-Anglicization and De-Francization

https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2024/04/24/beyond-afrocentrism-prerequisites-for-somalia-to-lead-african-de-colonization-and-de-westernization/

https://www.academia.edu/118012848/Beyond_Afrocentrism_Prerequisites_for_Somalia_to_lead_African_de_colonization_and_de_Westernization

https://vk.com/megalommatis?w=wall429864789_11249%2Fall

https://www.4shared.com/web/preview/pdf/qDG6u9Fgku?

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/muhammad-shamsaddin-megalommatis-677982143_prerequisites-for-somalia-to-lead-african-activity-7189287260201107456-L3S1/

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/beyond-afrocentrism-prerequisites-for-somalia-to-lead-african-decolonization-and-dewesternization/267536509

https://www.calameo.com/read/00715689774f9a8410730

https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/_b_Beyond_Afrocentrism_Prerequisites_for_Somalia_to_lead_African_de-colonization_and_de-Westernization_b_/25691655

https://www.patreon.com/posts/beyond-for-to-de-103047142

https://megalommatis.substack.com/p/beyond-afrocentrism-prerequisites?r=iwr0e

https://megalommatis.blogspot.com/2024/04/beyond-afrocentrism-prerequisites-for.html

https://medium.com/@megalommatis/beyond-afrocentrism-prerequisites-for-somalia-to-lead-african-de-colonization-and-ad7781ab7903

https://megalommatis.livejournal.com/51430.html

 

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https://www.academia.edu/121379681/Educational_Intellectual_De_Westernization_for_Africa_Rejection_of_the_Colonial_Elitist_Racist_and_Profane_European_Concepts_of_University_and_Academy

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